Why ASML isn’t worried about Applied’s pattern-shaping tool

ASML’s stock took a bit of a tumble on the last day of February when Applied Materials announced what some investors apparently considered to be a threat to EUV scanner sales. Those fears are overblown. Even if Applied’s “pattern-shaping technology” works as well as advertised, the Veldhoven-based equipment manufacturer stands to gain from the widespread adoption of the Centura Sculpta system.

The Sculpta is a selective etch tool designed to asymmetrically remove material. By moving a plasma beam at a configurable angle and speed across a wafer, the chemically reactive species nibble away at the sidewalls of existing features, thus changing their shapes. Holes, for example, can be elongated into ellipsoids.